Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am helping a friend start up black templars, but for years now i've been Orks so all i know is how to BREAK most armies using my own forces not really how to repel myself or most other armies using different styles of gameplay to me Orks are just so easy to absorb and understand. But with Marines you have a very small margin of error and every bit of points count especially when using marines you have very little wiggle room to experiment (at least in my opinion.)

I am trying to look over the army and keep things simple for the player and give him some powerful choices. We aren't wanting to go over 1k points right now and he doesn't have the ability to buy much but is very insistent his Marines hold the true templar models (a challenge i know). Anyway because their codex is so old and I am sure somewhere on the road to an update in the near future (they are now the oldest codex in all the IOM armies besides maybe SOB).

could you make some arguements that prove the black templar are a decent choice? I know they are but some encouragement or popular tactics to take could really help me make him some competitive suggestions.

Thanks if you find the time or share the wisdom of this with me

Pretty much the only thing they do at this point is terminator spam. Tactical terminators can get 2x CML with tank hunter cheaply. ~260 points for 4 S8 shots that reroll armor pen and are very tough to kill. The problem is that they do nothing else better than normal marines.

Zephoid doesn't know much about Templars.
They also have the cheapest Land Speeders, and can take Land Raider Crusaders for dedicated transports.

Add in cool things like techmarines in termie armour, Emp's champion and vows and Templars can be quite the army.

Sorry, can't convince you of something that isn't true. BT are a terrible army, all they have to offer is a couple of 3rd edition relics like terminator heavy weapons at two per five models. Until they get an update (or better, get put into C:SM where they belong) they'll continue to be a weak army and there's no reason to play them instead of another marine army.

Pretty much the only thing they do at this point is terminator spam. Tactical terminators can get 2x CML with tank hunter cheaply. ~260 points for 4 S8 shots that reroll armor pen and are very tough to kill. The problem is that they do nothing else better than normal marines.

The other problem is that, unlike good terminator spam armies like deathwing or GK, BT terminators aren't scoring. So you end up with tons of terminators, but not enough points left to buy scoring units that won't just get wiped off the table immediately.

 JohnnoM wrote:
They also have the cheapest Land Speeders

Which doesn't help much if you're overpaying or taking bad units elsewhere. Also, DA Land Speeders are cheaper.

and can take Land Raider Crusaders for dedicated transports.

Since there's no plausible scenario where you take more than three Land Raiders, this isn't much of an advantage.

Add in cool things like techmarines in termie armour

IOW, garbage.

Emp's champion

And garbage.

My black templar models as used as the Sons of Dorn Codex: Space Marine army until they get a new codex.

Black Templars are pretty lame, now.

Que dem0liti0n...

I love my Black Templars to death and I will never play them as anything else besides BT. That being said...it is a very hard army to play. They do not take well to mistakes and are not very forgiving unlike most armies. But they do have some neat options to open up many different play styles...

Black Tide if you want to have tons of models down on foot. This means taking 20 man crusader squads. You could play heavy terminator spam, but like said above you will be lacking in scoring units. Sword Brethren and our command squads can infiltrate. Thats just to name a few, there are plenty more where that came from.

But, if your friend is just starting out and his first choice is Black Templars. I don't think he will enjoy it too much compared other armies to start with.

Yeah, there's really not much of an argument to be had for the Black Templars codex being decent. There isn't really anything you can do with it that you couldn't do better with another space marine codex, except the "black tide" or land raider spam playstyles, which are hardly competitive anyway.

That being said, while poor from a competitive standpoint, you CAN win with the codex and you can make fun, fluffy BT lists with it. And honestly, warhammer 40k is horrible as a competitive game in general compared to other games on the market, so if you're not playing it for the fluff and models you should probably be starting a different game anyway.

 Peregrine wrote:
(or better, get put into C:SM where they belong)

Personally, I think that out of all of the chapters that currently have their own codices, Templars need one the most (and Dark Angels need one the least).

Black Templars are still a competitive army. You just need to know how to play them.

They SHOULD NOT be put in to a C:SM codex. No reason at all for that.

They can have 5 man troop squads with 1 heavy weapon, and 1 assault weapon.

5 man Termie squads with 2 heavy weapons and special skills.

75 point landspeeder typhoons.

3 special weapons in a bike squad (ie 3 meltas)

Better techmarines then codex marines.

Zeal movement (any time we take a casualty we move closer to the enemy)

Cheap melta bombs on all of our assault marines.

20 man troop squads if we want.

No sergeants to call out for a challenge (this can be an advantage or disadvantage)

You just have to look at what we can do compared to normal marines and look towards our strengths. Not that we have the oldest codex out right now.

Nate668 wrote:


Personally, I think that out of all of the chapters that currently have their own codices, Templars need one the most (and Dark Angels need one the least).

Exactly how I see it. Black Templars have so much going for them and are no where near a codex chapter. I would hate to see Helbrecht as a special HQ choice to give an army wide option to make a templarish army out of the C:SM.

So negativity aside, would you say the black tide is working best for them then?

*edit*

With a few land speeder options for ranged offense? Also what about their predators being one of the last chapters other than blood angels with Power of the Machine spirit could really pay off for them using things like Vindicators ect.

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
So negativity aside, would you say the black tide is working best for them then?

*edit*

With a few land speeder options for ranged offense? Also what about their predators being one of the last chapters other than blood angels with Power of the Machine spirit could really pay off for them using things like Vindicators ect.

For some real Black Templar info tell your friend to read this.

http://www.implausiblenature.net/

Take it all in, and use his advice.

I think black tide works, but it has some seriously terrible matchups. Your friend shouldn't expect to ever win against most IG or DE lists if he runs tide, but it should do fine against a lot of other matchups.

Really, he should just bring whatever he thinks is cool, while keeping in mind that the strongest units in the codex (or the choices that are cheaper/perform better than those in similar codices) are tank hunting terminators, PotMS vindicators, techmarines (powerful but overpriced), lascannon predators and land speeder typhoons.

EmperorsChampion wrote:

 Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
So negativity aside, would you say the black tide is working best for them then?

*edit*

With a few land speeder options for ranged offense? Also what about their predators being one of the last chapters other than blood angels with Power of the Machine spirit could really pay off for them using things like Vindicators ect.

For some real Black Templar info tell your friend to read this.

http://www.implausiblenature.net/

Take it all in, and use his advice.

Thanks! this should help a lot.

Nate668 wrote:I think black tide works, but it has some seriously terrible matchups. Your friend shouldn't expect to ever win against most IG or DE lists if he runs tide, but it should do fine against a lot of other matchups.

Really, he should just bring whatever he thinks is cool, while keeping in mind that the strongest units in the codex (or the choices that are cheaper/perform better than those in similar codices) are tank hunting terminators, PotMS vindicators, techmarines (powerful but overpriced), lascannon predators and land speeder typhoons.

Very decent insight here, that should help him alot, I figured IG would be a nightmare for him luckily most of his experience will be in 1,000 pts or less so that should help mitagate and in our FLGS no one runs Dark eldar at this time.

Anyway thank you both very much, I know the black templar have some serious limitations right now but i know also players who play an army while it is unpopular not only get to start them pretty cheaply they also get the ability to understand some of the very key mechanics to the game which will hone them into better players when GW finally gets off their butt and brushes this Codex off.

I just posted this in a army list for a guy:

Techmarine with full servo harness, and add a storm shield. Put 19, of a 20 man squad behind him, with 1 neophyte leading the charge. If the unit gets shot at, the neophyte will take the first hits, if he goes down, then the techmarine should soak wounds up pretty good. 2+, 3++ with 2W. (then LoS! if anything else nasty comes in) Zeal closer to the enemy and repeat.

Black Tide can be effective like this.

3x3 speeders with missiles and heavy bolter
4-6x5 crusaders with lascannon and plasma gun, rhinos as you see fit.

This makes for a decent shooting core in an army. They were better in 5th though. Aegis helps the dumb static shooting aspect quite a bit. The terminators are okay and I remember hearing vindicator a could be kitted out in a neat way.

Makes for a decent core for allied forward scoring.